House Update (and Applesauce)

 This is the view of the addition from the back of the house.  I had to step into the cornfield a row or two so it could fit in the viewfinder!

Check out the siding, the gutters, and the rain barrels!

Here's a view of some of the gardens at the back of the house.  All of these are just transplants that have been moved (yet again!) to what we hope will be their official homes!

This is the back step.  (Pretty, isn't it!)

 There's progress inside too!  These are some bathroom walls that are now installed so the plumber can come and put in the plumbing vents and lines.  --I'm missing a photo of the electrical wiring and new walls in the shop space, but it is progressing nicely too!  In fact, I swept out one side of the garage!  Hooray!

 Ferns on the back wall of the house.  The hose bib is in place, but not connected to a water supply yet.

 We bought some new plants for this east facing wall--three gooseberry plants.  I'm embarrassed to say I've never even tasted a gooseberry, but apparently they are cousins to currants.  

This is the west side of the addition/garage.  The transplants are back in place and have been mulched.








And, last, but not least, it is applesauce season.  The ida reds were brought in and were expensive this year, but they are big and beautiful! 

(I have to add a disclaimer here.  I help with the applesauce, but for all the rest of the work shown in this post I am just the consultant.  Martin has done all the transplanting, and mulching, and wall building, and wiring...  I think he's amazing!)

16 Shaft Test Sample

This is the test warp for my new AVL 16 shaft loom.  Sett at10 epi, the yarns are mohair/acrylic blends that I used for Elena's cloak fabric a few years ago.  I have 8 ends in each color stripe.  The draft is a plain weave/2-2 twill that I modified from something I saw on Handweaving.net. 

I am learning to treadle without mistakes.  It is a bit of a challenge.  The pattern is only 16 bars (which is so small compared to my friend's 90 bar pattern!), but I have occasionally discovered errors in the patterning.  I'm not 100% sure what is happening.  Part may be not depressing the left, "release" treadle completely.  Part may be other factors that are causing the shafts to catch strangely.  I caught the mistake twice and fixed it while weaving the 6-10" above.

Check out the fabric at the sides of the weaving.  I went to a Weaving Indiana meeting on Saturday and mentioned the purchase of my loom.  After the meeting I got to talking with one of my friends, who also has recently acquired a 16 shaft AVL production dobby loom (her's is 60" wide).  It was fun to swap stories and tips.  Putting the fabric strips on the sandpaper beam was Mary Alice's suggestion.  It is a wonderful way to save my arms from getting scratched! 

Fiber Call Out!

In connection with "Grandma's Room", a teaching location here in town, I am helping with a Fiber Call Out for Montgomery County.  Knitters, crocheters, spinners, weavers, hookers, dyers of all levels (even wanna-be's!) are welcome to join us.  We will meet on Tuesday, Sept. 11th at Grandma's Room in Crawfordsville, IN at 6:30pm.  Hope to see you there!

Our demonstration for the evening is "Handling Wool".  We'll be playing with wool--looking at characteristics such as fiber length and crimp--and making hand felted balls to take home.  The wools in the photo, from right to left, are Cormo (pink), Shetland (copper), and unknown (dark brown).  Guess which one hand felts the best?  Yep!  The unknown wool.  I don't know it's breed.  I can take some guesses.  I can tell you what it's not...  But it rolled into beautiful felted balls with almost no work!  I can't wait to take it to the group on Tuesday!